The first edition of the International Workshop on Academic Integrity and Responsibility hosted by the University of Bucharest took place between 9th-10th December 2019 in Bucharest, Romania.
Four CIVIS universities - Aix-Marseille Université, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Université libre de Bruxelles and the University of Bucharest- came together in order to identify common solutions to contemporary ethical challenges posed to academic research and how those can be best addressed by the institutional tools that we possess. The workshop examined the institutional framework that ensures rule compliance with respect to academic integrity and responsibility in all the four participating universities.
The first meeting of the students from CIVIS took the form of a two-days workshop. The main objective of the meeting was to establish a common agenda of the participating students regarding the best ways to foster student collaboration at the level of the CIVIS network in the field of academic integrity and responsibility.
The main topics of the workshop were the role of the ethics committees in universities and how we can design better codes of ethics, but also discussibility in academic integrity and its relevance in reaching our common goals.
Academic integrity is part of our ethical stance in all activities that reflect upon our academic life. The purpose of this workshop was to emphasize that students, faculty, administrators and staff are citizens of CIVIS, and that civic responsibility means going beyond a personal concern for ethical behaviour.
Thus, a consensus in support of academic integrity is the minimum requirement for accomplishing the aims we all share. Academic integrity has, more often than not, a spillover effect in society. Those positive externalities we create reinforce our institutions' role in society- that of engines for social transformation and civic engagement.